Criticism of Bourgeois Ideology in Soviet Marxist Epistemology

Abstract

The critical study of bourgeois ideology remained central to Soviet Marxist epistemology. Soviet modernity as an alternative project to Western capitalism aimed to reveal the pathologies of capitalist system. For this purpose, it significantly fostered and promoted critical scientific investigations on ideological nature and apparatus of bourgeois world. In this context, Soviet Marxist epistemology provided an excellent framework for a greater understanding of social, cultural, political and historical-philosophical essence of the capitalist system. The knowledge produced by Soviet Marxism not only merely described the elements of bourgeois political and sociocultural life in the twentieth century, but it also allows us to make accurate considerations about today’s liberal capitalist world and western imperialism. Thus, Soviet Marxist theory of knowledge is not just a part of Soviet intellectual history, but it’s also operational knowledge to explore contemporary social reality. This paper strives to explain the principal concepts and ideas in Soviet Marxist epistemology for the criticism of bourgeois ideology.

Soviet Union; Marxism; Bourgeois Ideology; Dialectical and Historical Materialism; Soviet Scholars.